Home Flows

After Howl’s Moving Castle, 2004

This is a good life, a good town. Inside a brightly painted hat shop you create beautiful objects. Berries and flowers and feathers adorn
your work, embellishment that is not found on your person. You do
not like yourself, but that’s okay. You create beauty for others.

This is a good life, a good town. You were here for school, and now you are back for a magazine internship. In a pale, cold office you help create beautiful words, editing and fact checking and moulding ideas. You do not like yourself, but that’s okay. You shepherd the beauty of others.

You do not join your happy coworkers; you are apart. A train whistles
and a parade moves through the street. You do not lose yourself in the celebration. One night: calamity. A being, shadowy and amorphous, arrives at your door. The Witch of the Waste insults you, belittles your life and work. She sees through you as if you were completely insubstantial, as if you were nothing at all.

Your friends have left the city; you are apart. The city is as alive as it ever was, but you stay still, in self-imposed exile in your small apartment. Slowly, over time: calamity. A being, shadowy and amorphous, seeps into your mind. Your own voice insults you, belittles your life and work. You who have barely started are already a failure. You are already nothing at all.

The spell the witch casts is thorough, and removes the words you
would need to describe it. You have been made old, weaker and
unrecognizable. There is no place for you in your home or in your life.
There is only the unknown ahead. Still, there is beauty: a mountain
view, a snack of bread and cheese, an enchanted scarecrow with the
head of a turnip.

Depression has you, thoroughly, and it takes many months to find the words you would need to describe it. You are unrecognizable, weaker and less brave. There is only the unknown ahead. Still, there is beauty. With long walks, bottles of wine, dungeons and dragons and undignified candour you make friends, build love.

You find an immense steam-powered monstrosity, barely holding on
its spindle legs. It is ugly and haphazard in its construction, worn,
dusty, rusting but strong. It is not merely one place. As it roams the
countryside, you explore doors that can lead anywhere. With the spin
of a dial cities become ports, soldiers become sheep. You feel wonder like you could never have imagined.

You find many homes. One is on the far side of the mountain, another cradled between two parks. They are sometimes ugly and haphazard in their construction. You stay in motion, going wherever there is a need: to deepen a friendship, to be closer to a school, to weather a plague. The internship multiplies into small, scrabbling freelance jobs, which in turn coalesce into the beginnings of a career. But you are never still, unwilling to be tethered and trapped.

Not everything is perfect. There is war in the world. Living together is
not easy. Sometimes you misplace a wizard’s potions and make him a redhead, much to his consternation. It rains. You cry. Then you make yourself useful, make the space your own, and tame the fires that rage in others.

Not everything is perfect. There is war in the world. Living with others is not easy. Sometimes friendships slip through your fingers, burning with fires you could not tame. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes you cry. But you make yourself useful, dye your hair purple, then blue, then red. You make this city your own.

You watch the wizard draw a salt circle and transform the castle into
a home. It is still magic, able to move and change, but there is a
newfound practicality, a new intention. “I added a bathroom for our
growing family,” says the wizard. You are gifted an endless garden.
You are back where you started, and yet nothing is the same.

You transform a love affair into a home. It is still magic, able to move and change, but there is a newfound practicality, a new intention. Your friends are more settled, your community sturdier. They gather in your garden, vine-covered and warm. You are still where you started, and yet nothing is the same.

And if, by stroke of ill fortune, the castle collapses, it is the people who are your home. Everything else can be rebuilt. You will sacrifice everything, even the hair off your head, for what you have created. After all, a heart can exist outside its body. Enemies can be redeemed. A scarecrow becomes a prince, a fire demon a star.

The city often feels as if it is collapsing. It is the people you strive to protect; everything else can be rebuilt. You protest and donate and sign petitions. You help friends, argue with landlords, and tend to this heart that exists outside your body. You wish to redeem enemies, let beauty shine, bring the cursed back to their glory. You nurture the wild, lawless magic of this place while also building a refuge.

Your magic ring has guided you back home. Curses have been broken. “Are we a family?” asks the wizard’s apprentice, who is at once child and old man. “Yes, we’re family,” you reply. A creaking, imperfect castle is rebuilt, takes to the skies.

You watch the small being who has taken up residence in your home, who is at once demon and pet, settle on your lover’s lap. “We are a family,” you think. “We are a home.” There is a ring; there is no tether, no trap. This home can become whatever there is need for it to be. It is your creaking, imperfect castle, always moving.

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First published in Ahoy Literary Magazine, vol. 1, in 2024.